WEDNESDAY — Our first night of Canadian Music Week was all about efficiency, wanting to see as many artists as possible in the
shortest amount of time. This made the Outlaws & Gunslingers night at the
Horseshoe the perfect choice, with Jim Cuddy, Danny Michel and Quique Escamilla
performing together on-stage, trading off after each song.

We've got to admit it, though: we mostly went to the show to see Jim Cuddy.
There's something special about getting the chance to see him perform on a
small stage without the rest of Blue Rodeo to back him up. He was fantastic
(of course!!) and Escamilla more than held his own — performing Mexican political songs (occasionally complete with a sombrero or a Zapatista mask). But as far as we're concerned, Danny Michel completely stole the hour-long set. Each time
he performed one of his songs, we found ourselves stunned, wondering how we'd somehow failed to discover his awesomeness before. How did we
miss the fact that he sounds so much like Paul Simon? Are we the last people on
earth to discover this? We're not sure. Who knows?

We do know that now we'll be dedicating our spare time to
catching up on everything we've missed, and making Michel one of our standard
must-sees anytime he's in town.

Laurie McGregor is a Toronto-based dilettante. She likes books, music, soft things,
baking, unicorns, robots and has an unnatural love of vending machines.
You can find her posts here and email her at laurie@littleredumbrella.com.